Experience is essential to knowing. If you have seen the moon, but I have not, none of your words can lead me to know the moon as you know it. If you have tasted a mango, but I have not, none of your words can lead me to know the taste as you know it. If you have known God, but I have not, none of your words can lead me to know God as you know God.
If the moon is reflected in all the bodies of water, and I look at the reflections, I only have a hint about the moon, but also I might think there are hundreds of moons, all living in the waters.
Ignorance can be fed by partial or second-hand information.
Important things for our successful journey on earth include actually and fully becoming Love, seeing fully, being compassionate and coming to Know God by whatever name you use to identify the Divine Presence.
Others can point The Way, but each of us must walk The Way ourselves.
Some things are simple. Just get a mango and eat it. The journey of awakening spiritually can be complex. There are many paths, but some lead nowhere or in circles or to dark places. Jesus told us to look at the fruit - what does this or that produce?
I re-read "Perennial Philosophy" almost every year. I find snipets of the same ideas across the ages, from every corner, discovering the same things. Voices from everywhere tell of Oneness, of all creation testifying to the incarnation of the Divine in all people, all animals, all plants, all of creation singing out the song of Oneness.
I contemplate a flower, and I touch that song. I silently bless a passerby, and I feel our connectedness. I meditate, and I know God in my soul and in all.
Seeking such experience means stopping being controlled from the outside, including the frenzy of social media, news, etc. It is the task of our lives to not get sidetracked by the lures of the shallow and crazed, but to turn to Peace and Beauty, to Love and Eternal Light and let our imprisoned splendor shine as a beacon of hope to the those lost in the frenzy.
May your light so shine.
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